Only a few moments later, a dozen Japanese dive-bombers and torpedo planes appeared in the sky to the west. The destroyers maneuvered to form a square with the lumbering Pennsylvania in the center. All five ships sent streams of antiaircraft fire into the approaching planes. Several were hit and fell in flames, but the others pressed on, with the blocking force of destroyers bearing the brunt of their wrath. One destroyer was hit by a bomb that blew away its forward turret and left it burning and almost dead in the water. A second was broken in half by a torpedo and sank in only a couple of minutes.
One Val dive-bomber got through and dropped an eight-hundred-pound bomb on the battleship’s already damaged bow. The Pennsylvania shuddered and plowed on. The Val was not as fortunate. It was blown out of the sky as it attempted to fly away.
Bombs and torpedoes expended, the remaining Japanese planes departed. It had cost them a mere five planes to sink one destroyer, badly cripple another, and they’d done additional damage to the Pennsylvania.
The burning destroyer could not keep up with the three other ships and remained back to look for survivors from the sunken one. None of the other ships would be able to stop. To delay was to allow the gap between them and Japanese surface ships that must be on their way to close further.
The rescue effort was doomed. Even though the fires seemed under control, the damaged destroyer would soon be sunk and was just delaying the inevitable.
This was borne out when several Japanese destroyers were sighted in the distance. The two remaining American destroyers promptly steamed after them to do battle. It was a mistake. Almost before they were away, one of the destroyers exploded, lifting out of the water before she settled back and disappeared. She was quickly followed by the second, and word went down that they’d been sunk by torpedoes.
“Can’t be,” Jamie said in dismay to the men of his ad hoc damage control party as they waited on the deck. The range was just too great, and the explosion was too big for torpedoes. “What the hell do the Japs have?”
Moments later, the Pennsylvania shuddered, and a massive plume of dirty water lifted alongside her hull. The impact knocked Jamie to the deck.
“Tell me that wasn’t a torpedo, Lieutenant,” said Seaman Fiorini, one of the men in the party.
Before Jamie could answer, the big guns on the rear turret began a thunderous long-range duel with the rapidly closing Japanese destroyers. The Pennsylvania was alone now, and had to keep the enemy destroyers as far away as possible.
The Pennsylvania’s gunners were both lucky and good. One fourteen-inch shell hit a Japanese destroyer, which exploded and disappeared. This caused the remaining three to pull farther out of range, although they continued to shadow the American ship.
Two hours later a floatplane was sighted on the horizon, and everyone on the Pennsylvania knew that the Jap battle fleet had sighted her. There would be no escape to California. Jamie was further disconcerted to realize that the Japanese were approaching from the north and not from the west. He realized there had to have been two Japanese task forces, and they had blundered into range of the second one.
Shortly after they were sighted, shells began to rain down on the Pennsylvania. At extreme range, none hit, but the splashes were greater than anything they’d seen before.
“Sixteen-inchers,” Fiorini said. “Maybe larger. Probably eighteens.”
Jamie laughed. “Ain’t nothing bigger than sixteen-inchers, and I don’t think the Japs have any of those. Besides, who made you an authority on big guns?”
Others in the party laughed nervously. Fiorini had been in the paymaster’s office and helped run the battleship’s newspaper. Fiorini was not deterred. “Sixteens at least,” he said, and the others hooted. It was good to be distracted, if only for a moment.
The Pennsylvania was struck by a pair of shells, and she shook like she was in an earthquake. Jamie was again knocked to his knees and, when he got up, saw flames and dark smoke pouring from the gaping ruin that had been her bridge. He wondered if Captain Cooke was still commanding the battleship. Then he wondered if anyone was.
The Pennsylvania was well within range of the Japanese guns that were still below the horizon, and she began to absorb additional punishment. At first Jamie and his crew tried to make emergency repairs, but it quickly became apparent that the Pennsylvania was doomed and that life above decks was a red-hot hell of raining shell fragments and flying debris.
Bloodily dismembered bodies were piled about, and wounded, many horribly mangled, lay screaming where they fell. Some of the unhurt ran around in confusion and blind terror, interfering with those who were trying to do their duty and fight the ship. Walking was difficult because of the blood that ran down the decks, and several of Jamie’s group were hit by debris and body parts. One sailor was swept overboard by a metal fragment, while another was killed when a human arm was driven through his chest like a spear.
Jamie took the survivors belowdecks, where they were shielded from the deadly rain. Anyone not in a turret or protected by the ship’s armor was going to die and very quickly. The battleship was fighting back, as the sound of her guns attested, but it seemed that the rate of fire was diminishing as the Japanese shells found their targets.
In the midst of the horror, Fiorini grabbed his arm. “Come with me, Lieutenant. You gotta see this.”
Jamie followed Fiorini down another couple of decks. The electricity was flickering, and Jamie was afraid he would be trapped in the dark bowels of a sinking ship, like the men in the Oklahoma, and the fear almost paralyzed him.
Fiorini read his thoughts. “Just through here, sir. Remember the hit that didn’t explode?”
“Yeah,” Jamie said nervously. It had happened a few moments earlier, when a shell slammed into the ship only a few dozen feet from them and they all thought they were dead. While they’d gasped in relief, Fiorini had disappeared for a moment.
Finally, Fiorini paused. “Look at her, but don’t touch. She’s still hot and may go off.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Embedded in the decking was a monstrous shell. Its head was buried and out of sight, but the base was fully visible. Jamie was a gunnery officer, and it was larger than anything he had ever seen.
“Hold this,” Fiorini said, handing him a tape measure. Jamie complied and measured the shell’s diameter. Eighteen inches! It was incredible; no, impossible. The Japs were firing eighteen-inch shells against them. He’d been told that nobody had eighteen-inchers, but he was staring at one.
Fiorini pulled a small camera from his work bag and took several flash pictures while Jamie held the tape. Jamie was about to comment on the camera when he recalled Fiorini’s work on the ship’s paper.
“These could be important,” Fiorini said, and Jamie agreed.
“But first we got to get them out of here.”
Somebody hollered that the ship was sinking, and they returned to the fury of the outside world as another Japanese salvo pounded them. By this time, the deck was only a few feet above the water, and the ship was tilted several degrees to starboard. Sailors were leaving the stricken vessel and were able to do so almost by stepping into the water.
“Who gave the order to abandon ship?” Jamie asked.
“No one,” came the reply. There was no one left to give the command. The venerable old Pennsylvania was defenseless, out of control, and sinking. The remaining turrets had been smashed, and the flame-charred guns were pointed in odd directions. Worse, it appeared that the ship was turning slowly in the direction of the Japanese, the tops of whose ships were now clearly visible as they emerged on the horizon. Jamie counted two battleships and then a third, and the third was a monster. He knew where the eighteen-inch shells had come from.